All Aboard For Growing Pains

BOYNTON BEACH — Shopper Hopper, the city's bus service, is so popular that it might have to cut services if it doesn't get $350,000 from city coffers to expand.

Left stranded would be about 75 children who use the buses to attend the city's after-school program.

"Right now, we are over capacity. Our Shopper Hopper is booming, and with our current staffing and buses, we won't be able to serve the after-school program next year," said Christine Roberts, interim director of public works.

The bus service, which includes four 19-passenger buses, was established in 1995 through a Palm Beach County grant. This year, the county is providing $250,000 to replace the buses.

The service caters to the city's seniors, driving them to and from crucial shopping destinations and the Boynton Beach Senior Center. It also takes children -- from Forest Park, Galaxy and Plumosa elementary schools -- to the city's after-school programs.

Ridership remained low until 1997, when the Shopper Hopper exclusively began to serve retirement communities and the after-school program.

In 1999, the buses carried 56,648 senior citizens. Officials said ridership has increased since the October opening of the senior center. That increase is making it more difficult to accommodate the daily pickups for the after-school program.

Without the Shopper Hopper, expanding the after-school program from 25 to 75 students "might have been a challenge to us," said Ginny Shea, marketing director of the city's leisure services department.

Representatives from both departments will meet today to discuss alternatives.

The city's leisure department is expected to ask city commissioners to add the $350,000 to its budget next year to help support the existing after-school program and a summer camp program that will start this year. The money would buy two additional buses with a 45-passenger capacity and hire two more drivers to transport the children.

"It's extremely popular," Roberts said. "The seniors absolutely love it, as do the parents and children that attend the after-school. It helps parents."

The city bus service costs $263,578 a year, including salaries and maintenance.

The city makes about $263,700 in revenue from the local option gas tax, the $1 riding fee and advertising. The city's Leisure Department also pays about $6,000 yearly to use the buses.

Shea said that if there isn't enough money in the city budget, the department might have to use its three 14-passenger vans to pick up the students instead.

"We will do what we can to keep this program going. It's very successful," she said.

Merle Augustin can be reached at maugustin@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6522.